“Life Is too Short; Drink GOOD Coffee!”
In 2016 our family went to Kenya, Africa with a mission mindset. As we began work and explored a new country, culture, and landscape, we discovered many, many interesting things. But when we found the coffee plantations, somehow it captured us!! From mature plantations to newly started ones, scattered across the mountainsides, but it was so unfamiliar to us. This struck our interest, but especially so since we loved to drink coffee as well!!
Travels across Kenya allowed us to find small, quaint Coffee farmers. We saw the coffee bushes in white blooms, and later, the green-looking cherries appeared. As the season progressed, and the crop matured, the cherries ripened to a Robust red color. A truly, beautiful sight to behold!!
Now as harvesting began, we would see folks out in the patches picking their crop by hand, with a bag slung over the back or hung around the shoulder and neck. The coffee cherries were then all taken to the local coffee mill to be shelled from the husk that covers the bean, the cherries are then washed and finally dried in the sun. Now it’s called a coffee bean, which is sorted out by size. The larger ones are more expensive, to the middle-sized ones, a little less. The smaller ones are roasted and sold as ground coffee. The last step is deciding the roast, like medium or dark roasts, etc. Tasting also takes place at some point to list the beans as fruity, nutty, or chocolate-tasting beans.
Often a whole hillside belonged to one farmer, numbering in thirty to close to a hundred bushes. The size of the bush is similar to that of American blueberry bushes. We had to stop along the mountain roadways and get pictures of this unfamiliar crop we were watching, like nothing we’ve ever seen before! One thing of interest we found, is that Kenyans drink more tea than coffee because coffee is more expensive than tea, in Kenya. Coffee is found mostly in the cities and the tourist areas of Africa. The middle class to poor people drink tea, which is also grown in Kenya.
However, we loved coffee and we were looking for a good quality coffee. The Kipkelion Coffee Mill Coop was one of the best coffees we found in Kenya. Their number one specialty is the double AA Kenya coffee. This coffee Mill may support well over 2000 small coffee farmers, as well as larger plantations. The vision of Kipkelion was to include the small farmer and go abroad also.
Our vision is to bring this prized, quality tasting coffee, and service, all the way from the coops in Kenya, back to our family and friends. Now, we want to present this to the public here in America, and for you, our valued customer, to ENJOY! We roast coffees to perfection at MILLER’S COFFEE CO. Currently, we have our own Diedrich Coffee Roaster. One of our twin sons is assisting us, with much interest in our coffee endeavors.
Thus, our “Coffee Dream” was born….”Give Me a little bit of COFFEE and a whole lot of JESUS!”
